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The bridge pickup in my Tele is a Texas Special from the mid 1990’s. It has died. 💀
Impedance is zero when tested with a multimeter and a guitar cable, should be up around 8K-ohms like the neck pickup. I’ve tried cleaning the 3 way switch, no joy. A local guitar tech tells me it’s probably a short in the coil and would need a rewind to fix it. This would cost around $100 after sending it away as he’s not set up to rewind it himself.
Rather than getting a rewind I could just get a new pickup for around the same cost. He is a Seymour Duncan dealer and has a Seymour Duncan Jerry Donahue Tele bridge pickup in stock and recommends it. He has one installed in one of his Teles so I’ll be able to get a demo when I drop the guitar off for a fix and a setup. He can order other brand pickups as well.
What would you do? Anyone replaced their Tele bridge pickup with good results? If so what did you put in it? I’m not in a hurry; the neck pickup is working fine so I’m gonna take my time and do it right. Thanks for sharing any ideas and experiences on this. Meanwhile I’m researching this on the web, there’s a lot of info out there, almost too much to parse.
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It’s good you get to hear the SD pickup before you buy. I like my Texas specials but there are many good ones out there so happy hunting. Nice b-bender!
Thanks Mike. The Tx Special in the neck position is really good and I’m keeping it. I never quite bonded with the bridge pickup when it was working though, hence the interest in finding a replacement for it. I’m not sure you can buy just the bridge Tx Special pickup either, I think you have to get both but might be wrong on that.
I did it myself. Bought a new pickup from Fender (surprisingly inexpensive), warmed up my soldering gun, and replaced it. That part was easy. The hardest part was stuffing all the wires back into the body.
You are right Steve; I only reached out to a luthier because I didn’t know what was wrong with it. Then I decided it would be good to have a full pro setup done on it as well. It’s been 26 years since the last one. I know enough about guitars to keep it fairly well dialed-in myself. The pickup dying though prompted me treat it to an overdue pro setup as well as a new pickup.
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First, you should unsolder the pickup from the switch and ohm out the pickup by itself. A “short in the coil” would be pretty rare. It’s more likely an issue with the switch. Be absolutely sure it’s the pickup that’s gone bad before you start throwing parts at it.
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First, you should unsolder the pickup from the switch and ohm out the pickup by itself. A “short in the coil” would be pretty rare. It’s more likely an issue with the switch. Be absolutely sure it’s the pickup that’s gone bad before you start throwing parts at it.
Good advice. Only way that a short could be in the coil, there would have to be physical damage or something conductive laying across the windings because there isn’t enough current going thru it to melt the wire and cause a short.
As mentioned, cut or desolder the wires from the switch and test it. Its the only was to accurately test it.
Does your guitar have a treble bleed resistor/capacitor installed?
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Mr. B. Bender Telecaster’s in the guitar hospital getting a pickup transplant and a chyropractic adjustment to the action.
I test-drove the SD Jerry Donahue pickup and it sounded pretty deep on the guitar doctor’s own tele. So I pressed the go-button on it and am looking forward to getting it back in a week or two.
If it sounds good, and is nicely hooked-up to the tone control (important for the SD Jerry Donahue pickup IMO, it has a whole palette of frankly useable- and distinct sounds available by dialing the tone knob up or down), I’ll report back here.
Quote is sitting at around $200 total for the standard setup and new SD bridge pickup at this stage.
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I picked up the b-bender tele yesterday. The Seymour Duncan Jerry Donahue pickup in the bridge position sounds incredible and I’m super enthused with it. As of right now, after a few hours playing it, I would unreservedly recommend it to Tele owners needing a replacement bridge pickup.
The old neck pickup was indeed shorted. That turned out to be a good thing because fixing, say, the switch, wouldn’t have led me to installing the SD JD which is better in every way than the old Tx Special. Bye bye, icepick in the eardrum syndrome.
The setup he did is perfection, better than it’s ever been before.
It’s like getting a new guitar that’s much better than your old one. Cost for the pickup, installation, standard setup and a set of Slinky 9’s was $200. Best $200 I’ve ever spent.
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